ANKARA
We made it through a very difficult ordeal in the now-resolved issue of our 49 consulate staff held hostage by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, said Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Monday.
Davutoglu was speaking during a late night live interview jointly broadcasted on Turkish private STAR and NTV channels on recent hot topics, especially the rescue of 46 Turkish nationals in the city of Mosul ın Iraq from ISIL militants.
The 49 hostages – including diplomats, consular officials and their families - were kidnapped from the Mosul consulate on June 11, a day after ISIL took control of Iraq's second-largest city. The 46 Turkish hostages arrived in Turkey following the rescue operation on Saturday.
The chief of the Turkish government, who spearheaded the whole process since his days as the foreign minister, described the key points of the 'national rescue operation' conducted by Turkey's national intelligence service MIT.
"The rescue is not a result of magical word or method but the fruit of a well-worked out strategy which was devised day by day," said Davutoglu.
Concerning the means used for the rescue of hostages, the Turkish prime minister pointed out that tribes in Mosul region, both Sunni and Shia, who opposed the U.S. occupation of Iraq after fall of Saddam Hussein, and have a sympathy for Turkey, had been contacted.
Asked about the channels that enabled contact with ISIL, Davutoglu said such people belonged those in the grey zone, like a scholar of Turkmen origin or an esteemed tribal leader, both respected by the militant group.
He emphasized that there were certainly negotiations for the hostages, as they ordered the intelligence service to talk with whomever they needed to.
Davutoglu added that negotiations were also important to guarantee the safety of the hostages until they reached Turkish soil, all along their way through the corridor from Mosul to Syria's Raqqa and then to Tal Abyad on the Turkish border.
"Our first goal was to keep our citizens alive, then keep them together for their safety," he said.
Davutoglu stressed the difficulty to keep track of the movements of the hostages to eight different locations during 101 days of captivity and control the conditions in the conflict-ridden region.
He described one of the top challenges as the fear of an additional threat to hostages' life after the U.S. launched air attacks on ISIL-held points in northern Iraq.
Davutoglu said they also had to control and treat the psychological effects the situation had on different people all through the process: families of the hostages, those involved in the decision-making of the operation, the hostages, and those holding the Turkish nationals captives.
The minister added that they refrained from calling the consulate staff hostages at the beginning of their captivity so as not to demoralize them.
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